Controversy over City bonuses will be reignited this week when Barclays admits it paid its staff more than last year, fuelling predictions that the amount of bonuses paid out across the Square Mile since the 2008 crisis could soon hit £80bn.

Starting the reporting season for the high-street banks, Barclays will be followed in the coming fortnight by bailed-out banks Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, as well as HSBC, in disclosing how much each has paid in bonuses for 2013.

If the 2013 bonuses match the average of £13.5bn paid each year, the total will top £80bn by the end of 2014.

This is more than £1,000 for every man, woman and child in the UK and three times the £20bn of revenue HMRC collected from the banks in corporation tax, the bank levy and the bonus tax combined during the same period, according to the campaigners for a tax on financial transactions.

The Robin Hood tax campaign said: "This level of handout in the state-supported financial sector is a national scandal. As the rest of us live through austerity, the City's age of affluence carries on regardless.

"This year's bonus season is set to be another stark reminder of just how obscene bankers' pay packets have become."

According to calculations by the campaigners the bonuses being paid out could reverse all the £11.5bn additional public spending cuts announced at the 2013 spending review, or eliminate 10% of the 2012-2013 budgetary deficit, or pay for the disability living allowance with enough left over to scrap the bedroom tax.

This year's payouts will be the last before the European Union enforces a cap, limiting bonuses to 100% of salaries or 200% if shareholders give their support. Most banks are expected to ask their investors to back the higher proportion, including 81% taxpayer-owned RBS, and also to find ways to protect high earnings by devising third payments which count as neither salary nor bonuses.

Barclays has starting telling those staff affected by the bonus cap – the most senior staff likely to be earning more than €750,000 (£622,000) – that they will receive a monthly role-based allowance.

"The UK government should stop cosying up to their friends in the City and stem the problem at source by ensuring the Square Mile pays more in tax. Current levies simply aren't doing the job," the Robin Hood tax campaign said. which It argues a levy on financial transactions would bring in £30bn a year for the 11 nations about to introduce it in Europe. In the UK, which is not introducing the levy, it would raise as much as £20bn, campaigners say.

In December the Corporation of London, the local authority for the financial district, said the financial services industry had contributed £65bn of tax in the 2012-13 financial year and that 1.1 million worked in the sector – nearly 4% of the total UK workforce.

Barclays' 2013 profits are forecast at £5.4bn, down on a year ago when Jenkins set out his "transform" plan to pull out of businesses that risked damaging its reputation and axe 3,700 jobs. This year further job losses are expected as the bank adopts new technology and cuts back its investment bank following last year's £5.8bn cash call. It may also extend its plans to shrink the size of its investment bank; it has already pledged to cut its balance sheet by between £65bn and £80bn.

Jenkins also said last year that he would set out eight commitments for the bank which would not necessarily be based on financial targets.

His counterpart at Lloyds Banking Group, António Horta-Osório, has also begun to make pledges intended to "help Britain prosper". On Thursday, when the bank reports its 2013 results, he will set out the case for privatisation of the government's remaining 33% stake in the bank after he received a £2.3m bonus on the back of the rise in share price last year. Last week he had to admit the bank's provision for payment protection insurance was rising again, to almost £10bn.

Banking standards will also be in the spotlight this week when Sir Richard Lambert, former director-general of the CBI, releases his draft report into banking ethics and standards.